The Kantian Liberal Peace (Revisited) Vesna DanilovicUniversity at Buffalo, SUNY. google_ad_width = 728; They know only the force and hostility, ignoring the law. (95) The security dilemma is absurd …, Moreover, hiring man to kill man makes him a machine of the state, which has different notions of right than individual rights (95), Voluntary military training is practical for defense and not as easily manipulated (95), Thus the army is one of three powers – army, alliance, and money – that foments insecurity abroad and encourages aggression at home (95), If we could make transparent the economic endowments of states, for example, there would be less uncertainty and thus incentive for war (95), Foreign affairs will not contribute to the national debt (95), Credit is good if used for constructive purposes, like infrastructure development or as a famine hedge (95), Credit, when funding aggression, is extremely dangerous (95), The short-term debts are never demanded by creditors, allowing debts and thus military expenditures to grow larger than the constraints of the treasury, and this can continue for an indefinite period of time (95), This practice ends only when tax revenue cannot keep up with interest payments, and even this end can be delayed through other economic means (95), This makes war easy, which combines with the warlike inclinations of rulers to lead to near perpetual wars (95), The result is national bankruptcy, thus dragging other states, who must incur costs, into the role of stabilizers (95), These states are justified in preventing their involvement in and harm from such a crisis (95), States will not interfere with each other’s “constitutions and governments” (96), Very little can justify interference, especially not “sense of scandal or offense” between peoples (96), Interventions should only “serve as a warning to others” against internal chaos and “lawlessness” (96), However, if a state has split into different states, then intervention on the side of one or the other is justified because these are new states, not an one old one (96), Until a state is so divided, intervention is still interference into the affairs of a struggling but unitary state (96), This intervention is unjustified and is a dangerous precedent (96), States at war will not act to make reconciliation and trust impossible, such as through the use of “assassins … poisoners … breach of agreements, the instigation of treason,” and spies (96), These tactics are “dishonorable” because even in war states should be able to trust the enemy to honor its commitment to the end of hostilities (96), Without this trust, we have not war but “extermination” (96), War is simply the method of enforcing a society’s rights against another in the state of nature without the court of law (96), Without a court and its judge, no party can be declared justified (except maybe in the retrospective “judgment of God”) (96), Since states are equal, with none superior or inferior, wars of punishment are inconceivable (96), Therefore wars of extermination lead to a perpetual peace only when humanity is destroyed (96), The means and tactics of this war, because the outcome is so terrible, should be prohibited (96), The tactics mentioned (assassins, poisons, breach of agreements, treason) not only remove a chance for trust after war but can also be applied outside of open war, turning truce and peace into hostilities (97), Republican constitutions are of three characteristics: freedom of society-members (as men), dependence of these members on one legislation (as subjects), and legal equality for all (as citizens) (99), Republican constitutions are the only constitutions based on the original contract, and the original contract is the only right source of legislation (100), Republicanism is not only “pure in its origin” but also leads to perpetual peace (100), This is because if the consent of the citizens is required for war, they would be weary of personally incurring the costs of war (fighting, supplying, rebuilding, and paying for the hostilities which “embitters” and raises the costs of peace) (100), Without a republican constitution, heads of state do not incur these costs personally and are thus likely to enter into war more casually (100), States are classified either by who rules (autocracy, aristocracy, or democracy) or how society is ruled (republican or despotic) (100-101), Republicanism is where executive and legislative power are distinct, and despotism is where the executive is also the legislative (101), Democracies are despotic because all the ruling body – all the citizens – can make a decision about an individual or minority; while this is a decision made by the people, it is not by all the people or for all the people, “and this means that the general will is in contradiction with itself, and thus also with freedom” (101), Non-representative governments (monarchies, for example, represent the people with a king, aristocracies with aristocrats, and while they often descend into despotism, they pay lip service to this representativeness) are anomalies, for one person cannot both legislate and execute their preferences, “just as the general proposition in logical reasoning cannot at the same time be a secondary proposition” (101), Democracies are necessarily despotic because the people, who legislate, are also made the rulers (101), Ironically, the smaller the number of rulers and “the greater their powers of representation,” the state grows closer to the ideal republican constitution, usually achieved through gradual reforms (101), Monarchies and aristocracies are loathe to republicanize through gradual reform, whereas democracies can do so through violent revolt (101), Representation alone creates republicanism, and without it arises despotism and violence (102), “The Right of Nations shall be based on a Federation of States” (102), A group of people that is a nation-state treat other states like individuals in a state of nature, largely because their existence is a potential threat (102), Each nation has the right to demand of other nations their entry into a “federation of peoples” that would secure each nation’s rights (102), This is not an international state, with superior and inferior positions, but a federation of equals (102), That states war with each other instead of thus federating is like the savages who war between themselves in their lawless state of nature (102-103), The “depravity of human nature” is most visible in relations between states and thus it is surprising that “rights” have any place in foreign affairs (103), States, in essence, use the rhetoric of justice to justify their actions, ignoring the moral claims of dissident voices (103), Yet, that states pay attention to moral argument shows that man has a higher capacity to overcome his depravity (102), The only way states can enforce their rights in the absence of courts is through war, but the resolution of war and the uncertainty of a trucial “peace” do not fully determine rights (104), Unlike individuals, who are obliged to form hierarchies (governments) to mitigate the state of nature, states have their own constitutions and have “outgrown” the “coercive rights of others” (104), Yet reason prohibits war as this determiner of rights, instead calling for peace (104), A “particular league” is required to satisfy these requirements: a “pacific federation” which, unlike a peace treaty ending one war, ends all wars between all state parties (104), This federation does not seek power but the freedom of its members (104), This principle of federalism is feasible and practically useful (104), The federation can coalesce around extant republics and then spread through alliances (104), For the concept of international right to remain valid without a higher court, this federation is required (104-105), International right is not a right to war, for right descend into rhetoric, away from objective law (105), States probably should renounce, like men entering into a contract, their rights to violence, but this is impractical (105), The next best solution is a federation of this kind, which mitigates but can never prevent the risk of an outbreak of war (105), “Cosmopolitan Right shall be limited to Conditions of Universal Hospitality” (105), Hospitality means “the right of the stranger to be treated with hospitality when he enters on someone else’s territory,” but he can be turned away without aggression if he is peaceable (105-106), He does not have the right of a guest to be entertained, which is specific to special relationships (106), He has the right to resort to a society, joining it, because he inherited the limited earth like all other men and like them has a right to the earth’s surface (106), Plunderers who attack their neighbors by virtue of proximity violate these rights (106), But if they seek to communicate with their neighbors, this is their right of hospitality, and it is a small step to a “cosmopolitan constitution” (106), There are varying degrees of community on the earth, from the inhospitable, rude, and aggressive “civilized” world to the cautious orient (106-107), Also, a violation of rights in one part of the world is now felt everywhere, thus showing how applicable a cosmopolitan right is to the current day (108), This should be an international law and universal human right (108), “On the Guarantee of Perpetual Peace” (108), Nature guarantees perpetual peace with a “purposive” plan of harmony between men, even against their will (108), The mechanism is called fate, but we can consider it as a “higher purpose” guiding humanity towards the telos of providence (108), This is an unobservable and uninferable agency, but “as with all relations between the form of things and their ultimate purposes,” we must conceive of it through an analogy with things more basic (108-109), Providence’s relationship to the end prescribed (the end of morality) is just a far-fetched idea, but it has a base in practice in the concept of perpetual peace (109), It is our duty to promote this perpetual peace (109), However, in this context, we should be concerned more with theory (not religion) and with the limitations on humanity to observe nature (and not providence), Nature has crafted a plan on three pillars: humans can live where they settle, they are driven to different places through war, and they enter legal relationships such as the state (109), As an expression of how developed these legal relationships are, nations first entered into peaceful relations in order to trade (111), As an expression of how war spreads man across the world and thus peopling the earth, man makes or scrapes a living in almost every place (110-111), This war is natural to man, and instincts like courage, dignity, and honor are seen as noble both in times of war and so that there may be war (111-112), Yet, nature wills on man to fulfill his moral purpose, even in the three areas of right – political, international, and cosmopolitan (112), Firstly, people submit to authority both to leave the state of nature and to defend against war (112), Republicanism is hard but not impossible to achieve (112), This can even be solved by a nation of devils through balancing their selfish, opposing views off one another to produced the public conduct of angels (112-113), Because this is a problem of construction and not moral improvement, it can be solved by man (113), States have approached the final construction of this system, although it is imperfect, because nature has “irresistibly willed” it upon us (113), Secondly, international right assumes the existence of multiple states which exist in a state of war unless bound by federation (113), Yet, this is preferable to a world-state because laws lose power the more hierarchical the government, and to maintain its control the central government must “crush the germs of goodness,” eventually collapsing (113), Nature wills against this one-world state by differentiating the languages of man and his religion, While these differences have led to war, cooperation, understanding, and tolerance can lead to a perpetual peace (113-114), Thus nature both divides man into states and unites him through cosmopolitanism (114), The spirits of commerce and the financial powers of the state will move the world towards peace, playing not on moral but selfish motives (114), Nature seeks to guarantee peace through the mechanism of human nature (114), “Secret Article of a Perpetual Peace” (114), Objectively, secret articles are inconsistent with public rights (114), Subjectively, if a person seeks to hide his authorship, secrecy in articles may be acceptable (114), The state, regardless of humiliation, should seek the instruction of its knowledgeable subjects, as in philosophers, in how it conducts foreign policy (115), The state can do this by allowing them to speak freely without telling other states how society has devised its foreign policy (thus subjective secrecy) (115), This only means that the philosopher should give input and advice to the politicians and legislators (115), Because philosophy is less used by the legislator, this is an especially important principle (115).